bsd.port.mk(5)

NAME

bsd.port.mk – ports tree master Makefile fragment

SYNOPSIS

.include <bsd.port.mk>

DESCRIPTION

bsd.port.mk contains the ports(7) tree make(1) framework, in the form of documented public targets, variables and paths.

The actual bsd.port.mk file lives under ${PORTSDIR}/infrastructure/mk, with make(1)'s system include file redirecting to it.

Optional parts of this framework have been moved to port-modules(5) in an effort to shrink the main file( see also MODULES).

Identifiers beginning with an underscore are internal-use only and likely to change without notice.

This documentation contains sections covering targets, variables, diagnostics, and filenames, ordered in alphabetic order, followed by a section covering the fake framework, a section covering debug packages generation, a section explaining flavors and multi-packages, and a section covering the generation of package information.

It ends with sections covering some obsolete targets, variables and files, outlining conversion methods from older incarnations of the ports tree or from other BSD variants.

bsd.port.mk also uses quite a few helper scripts which live under ${PORTSDIR}/infrastructure/bin.

Binary package details are mostly covered in pkg_create(1) for the packing-list details, and in pkg_add(1) for the installation semantics.

Common usage such as building every package in the system is covered by ports(7) and bulk(8) instead, with packages(7) providing an overview of the result.

TARGETS

{build,run,all,test}-dir-depends

Print all dependencies for a port in order to build it, run it, build and run it, or to run regression tests. The output is formatted as package specification pairs, in a form suitable for tsort(1).

Note that it is possible to obtain reverse dependency information by using the show-reverse-deps script from the sqlports package.

full-{build,run,all,test}-depends

Print all dependencies a package depends upon for building, running, or both, as a list of package names, sorted by dependency order with tsort(1), most dependent port first.

{build,lib,test,run}-depends-list

Print a list of first level package specifications a port depends as build dependencies, library dependencies, test dependencies or run dependencies.

print-{build,run}-depends

User convenience target that displays the result of full-{build,run}-depends in a more readable way.

{pre,do,post}-*

Most standard targets can be specialized according to a given port's needs. If defined, the pre-* hook will be invoked before running the normal action; the do-* hook will be invoked instead of the normal action; the post-* hook will be invoked after the normal action. Specialization hooks exist for build, configure, distpatch, extract, fake, gen, install, patch, test. See individual targets for exceptions.

all-lib-depends-args

Process the full LIB_DEPENDS list into a form suitable for pkg_create(1), see print-package-args.

build, all

Default target. Build the port. Essentially invoke

env -i ${MAKE_ENV} ${MAKE_PROGRAM} ${MAKE_FLAGS} \
	-f ${MAKE_FILE} ${ALL_TARGET}

check-register

Introspection target. Verify from the ports tree, without building anything, that the current subpackage will register okay( see PLIST_REPOSITORY).

check-register-all

Apply check-register to all subpackages of the current port.

checkpatch

Check that patches would apply cleanly, but do not modify anything.

check-shlib-syms

Compare exported dynamic symbols for PLIST shared libraries after fake, against matching installed libraries. Libraries with no installed counterpart are reported and skipped.

checksum

Compute a sha256(1) digest of ${CHECKSUMFILES} (files listed in DISTFILES* and PATCHFILES*) and check it against ${CHECKSUM_FILE}, normally distinfo. In case of a mismatch, running checksum with REFETCH=true will fetch alternative versions of files keyed on their checksum from the OpenBSD main archive site.

clean

Clean ports contents. By default, it will clean the work directory. It can be invoked as make clean='[depends build bulk work fake flavors dist install sub package packages plist test]'.

work: Clean work directory.
bulk: Clean bulk cookie.
build: Clean the WRKBUILD directory (only useful if SEPARATE_BUILD is set).
depends: Recurse into dependencies.
dist: Clean distribution files.
fake: Clean fake installation directory.
flavors: Clean all work directories.
install: Uninstall package.
package: Remove all copies of package file.
plist: Remove registered packing-lists of all subpackages.
test: Clean test cookie.
sub: With install or package, clean subpackages as well.
packages: Shorthand for ‘sub package’.
all: Shorthand for ‘work flavors packages plist’.

clean-depends

Shorthand for ‘make clean=depends’.

configure

Configure the port. By default, configure creates the ${WRKBUILD} directory (see SEPARATE_BUILD), and runs whatever configuration methods are recorded in CONFIGURE_STYLE.

distclean

Shorthand for ‘make clean=dist’.

distpatch

Apply distribution patches only. See patch, PATCH_CASES and FIX_CRLF_FILES for details.

dump-vars

Dump the values of all relevant variables in a port, prepended with the port's FULLPKGPATH.

Can be limited to some specific information by setting DPB to nothing or ‘fetch’. Mostly used by dpb(1) for obtaining vital information from the ports tree.

extract

Extract the distribution files under ${WRKDIR} (but see EXTRACT_ONLY, FIX_EXTRACT_PERMISSIONS and NO_DEPENDS). Refer to EXTRACT_CASES for a complete description. Do not use pre-extract and do-extract hooks.

fake

Do a fake port installation, that is, simulate the port installation into the staging area ${WRKINST}. There is no do-fake and post-fake hooks: instead fake runs pre-fake, pre-install, do-install and post-install. Override pre-install, do-install, or post-install to change behavior.

There are only a handful of ports that use pre-fake: that hook can be used to finish setting up a fake directory before starting the installation proper. Stuff run during pre-fake will not register with update-plist, whereas stuff run during pre-install will be considered part of the installation process.

See THE FAKE FRAMEWORK section below.

fake-wantlib-args

Check WANTLIB against the list of installed packages and libraries in the ports tree. See print-package-args.

fetch

Fetch the list of files in DISTFILES* and PATCHFILES* using ${FETCH_CMD}. Files are normally retrieved from the list of sites in SITES*.

Adding a suffix to DISTFILES, PATCHFILES, SUPDISTFILES will switch the site entry to the corresponding SITES variable, e.g.,

DISTFILES.go = ...
SITES.go = ...

If the rest of the entry parses as ‘filename{url}sufx’ ${FETCH_CMD} will fetch urlsufx instead, but store the result as filenamesufx.

Transfers in progress are stored as filenamesufx.part and moved after completion.

The actual filesystem paths to all distfiles (resp. patchfiles) after url/filename substitution, including suffixed sources, is conveniently stored as ALL_DISTFILES( resp. ALL_PATCHFILES). The ports framework uses ${DISTDIR}/${DIST_SUBDIR} (aliased to ${FULLDISTDIR}) to save the ports distribution files and patch files.

If you want to fetch a significant number of distfiles quickly, say all files relevant to a port, dpb -F is more efficient.

There are no {pre,do,post}-fetch hooks, as this would break dpb(1).

See ALL_DISTFILES, ALL_PATCHFILES, ALL_SUPDISTFILES, CHECKSUMFILES, DISTDIR, DISTFILES*, DIST_SUBDIR, FETCH_CMD, FETCH_MANUALLY, FULLDISTDIR, MAKESUMFILES, PATCHFILES*, SUPDISTFILES*, REFETCH. SITES*,

fetch-all

Like fetch, but also fetches SUPDISTFILES*, for use by e.g., makesum.

fix-permissions

Ensure permissions are correct when using PORTS_PRIVSEP and/or dpb(1).

If necessary, creates directory DISTDIR owned by FETCH_USER, and creates directories LOCKDIR, PACKAGE_REPOSITORY, PLIST_REPOSITORY and WRKOBJDIR owned by BUILD_USER.

If these directories already exist, ownership of their contents is modified to conform to PORTS_PRIVSEP and dpb(1) requirements.

gen

Generate configure script when needed, either after patching input files, or from scratch for some ports, generally using automake, autoconf, autoreconf and similar GNU tools. This target only has modules (MODxxx_gen) and a do-gen hooks. Then adjust timestamps to avoid regeneration during build( see REORDER_DEPENDENCIES).

generate-readmes

Generate READMEs, rc scripts and login.conf.d files from ${PKGDIR} into ${WRKINST}. Run after fake and before package or update-plist. Always rerun, as it is cheap enough.

install-depends

Before package installation, install and verify dependencies constructed from RUN_DEPENDS, LIB_DEPENDS, and WANTLIB.

install

Install the package after building. See the description of THE FAKE FRAMEWORK for the non-intuitive details of the way {pre,do,post}-install hooks are actually used by the ports tree.

install-all

Install all packages in a multi-packages port.

lib-depends-args

Filter LIB_DEPENDS to keep only entries required by WANTLIB, and output a list of dependencies suitable for pkg_create(1), see print-package-args.

lib-depends-check

Verify that the LIB_DEPENDS and WANTLIB recorded in the port's packages are accurate. See port-lib-depends-check, which checks files under the fake staging directory instead, and thus has faster turn-around.

license-check

Check that PERMIT_PACKAGE settings match: if any dependency has a more restrictive setting, warn about it. This warning is advisory, because automated license checking cannot know that some ports were only used for building and did not taint the current port.

lock

Manually obtain a lock on a given directory. Output must be used to update environment variables. The lock can be released with unlock. Seldom used, see ports(7) for details.

makesum

Uses fetch-all to fetch missing ${MAKESUMFILES} without verifying their digest, then run sha256(1) on them that is, files listed in ${DISTFILES*}, ${SUPDISTFILES*} and ${PATCHFILES*}. The result is stored in ${CHECKSUM_FILE}, normally distinfo. Also store the lengths of all files for a quick check during fetch, fetch-all.

no-lib-depends-args

Degenerate form of lib-depends-args that does not do anything. See print-package-args.

no-wantlib-args

Degenerate form of wantlib-args that does not do anything. See print-package-args.

package

Build a port package (or packages in a MULTI_PACKAGES case) from the fake installation. Involves creating packaging information from templates (see COMMENT, SUBST_VARS among others) and invoking pkg_create(1) for each package in the MULTI_PACKAGES list. If the repository already contains up-to-date packages, they are not rebuilt. If PLIST_REPOSITORY is set (the default), the resulting packaging information is compared with existing stuff, and saved if new, with loud complaints if it changed without a REVISION bump.

if DEBUG_PACKAGES is set, some debug information may also be set aside and saved in debug-* packages transparently.

Also note that ${PLIST_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/history contains LRU caches for all files( see package(5)). Arch-independent packages are created in ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/no-arch, and copied into ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/all as needed. If ${PERMIT_PACKAGE} is set to ‘Yes’, copies built packages into ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/ftp, using hard links if possible.

patch

Apply distribution and OpenBSD specific patches. Because of historical accident, patch does not follow the exact same scheme other standard targets do. Namely, patch invokes pre-patch (if defined), do-patch, and post-patch, but the default do-patch target invokes distpatch directly. So, if the do-patch target is overridden, it should still begin by calling ‘make distpatch’, before applying OpenBSD specific patches. Accordingly, the exact sequence of hooks is: pre-patch, do-distpatch, post-distpatch, do-patch, post-patch. If ${PATCHDIR} exists, the files described under PATCH_LIST will be applied under WRKDIST.

peek-ftp

Connect to the first site in SITES, in the right directory, and leaves user at ftp(1)'s prompt.

pkglocatedb

Top-level target, see ports(7).

port-lib-depends-check

Verify that the LIB_DEPENDS and WANTLIB hold all shared libraries used for every package in the port. See library-specs(7). This makes use of print-plist-with-depends to avoid actually building the packages, it only needs the completion of the fake stage, and thus is quicker than lib-depends-check, unless you already have all binary packages.

port-wantlib-args

Resolve WANTLIB against the ports tree itself and system libraries, without looking at built or installed packages, and writes a list of options suitable for pkg_create(1). See print-package-args.

prepare

Before port building, install and verify dependencies constructed from BUILD_DEPENDS, LIB_DEPENDS and WANTLIB. In MULTI_PACKAGES setups, see FLAVORS AND MULTI_PACKAGES.

print-package-args

Print all dependency-related information that will be passed as parameters to pkg_create(1), e.g., -W wantlib and -P depends lines.

Those parameters are generated by run-depends-args for RUN_DEPENDENCIES handling, a form of lib-depends-args for LIB_DEPENDS and WANTLIB interaction, and a form of wantlib-args for WANTLIB resolution.

Variables lib_depends_args and wantlib_args control the exact behavior: lib_depends_args is normally set to lib-depends-args, but will be set to all-lib-depends-args by port-lib-depends-check, in order to have access to the full list of LIB_DEPENDS for figuring out missing WANTLIB. wantlib_args is normally set to wantlib-args but it may be set to port-wantlib-args for introspection purposes, to fake-wantlib-args to avoid some checks, or to no-wantlib-args to avoid expensive WANTLIB checks entirely.

print-update-signature

Print the update signature, as computed using information from the ports tree, in the same format used for pkg_info(1) -S.

print-plist

Generate and print a package packing-list from the static information present in the port.

print-plist-all

Iterate over print-plist for all subpackages in a given port.

print-plist-all-with-depends

Iterate over print-plist-with-depends for all subpackages in a given port.

print-plist-contents

Generate and print package contents from the static information present in the port. In contrast with print-plist, the package contents only consists of files, all tagged with category markers such as @file. See pkg_create(1).

print-plist-libs

Generate and print the list of static and dynamic libraries present in the port. See pkg_create(1).

print-plist-all-libs

Iterate over print-plist-libs for all subpackages in a given port.

print-plist-libs-with-depends

Like print-plist-libs, but slower. It also handles LIB_DEPENDS, RUN_DEPENDS, and WANTLIB, so that the packing-list has complete dependency information.

print-plist-with-depends

Like print-plist, but slower. It also handles LIB_DEPENDS, RUN_DEPENDS, and WANTLIB, so that the packing-list is complete.

rebuild

Force rebuild of the port.

regen

Force rebuilding configure scripts using gen steps.

reinstall

Force reinstallation of a port, by first cleaning the old installation. This will obviously not work for software used as dependencies of other installed software. In that case, update might do the right thing.

repackage

Rebuild the packages of a port after removing existing packages.

run-depends-args

Process RUN_DEPENDS and outputs a list of dependencies suitable for pkg_create(1), see print-package-args.

reprepare

Force running the prepare target again.

retest

Force running the test target again.

show

Invoked as make show=name, show the contents of ${name}. Invoked as make show="name1 name2 ...", show the contents of ${name1} ${name2} ..., one variable value per line. Mostly used from recursive makes, or to know the contents of another port's variables without guessing wrongly.

show-debug-info

Displays the information that was generated by build-debug-info(1).

show-fake-size

Print the size of ${WRKINST}, in kilobytes. Used by some options of dpb(1), suitable for BULK_TARGETS.

show-indexed

Similar to show. Invoked as make show-indexed=name, show the contents of ${name${SUBPACKAGE}}, or ${name} if the variable name is not SUBPACKAGE dependent.

show-list

Similar to show. Shows "list-like" variables, one entry per line. Mostly useful as a debugging target, since some internal variables may now exceed ARG_MAX.

show-prepare-results

Print the list of actual installed packages found out by prepare.

show-prepare-test-results

Print the list of actual installed packages found out by prepare and test-depends.

show-required-by

Print the list of pkgpath(7) for all ports that will be affected by the current port changing. Works by walking the full list of all dependencies of all ports, in reverse.

Very slow, prefer installing the sqlports package and using show-reverse-deps.

show-run-depends

Print all running dependencies for a port, one per-line, without duplicates.

subpackage

Build a port package. Exactly like package, but affects only one single subpackage in multi-packages ports.

show-size

Print the size of the work directory, in kilobytes. Used by some options of dpb(1), suitable for BULK_TARGETS.

subupdate

Update an existing installation to a newer package, exactly like update, but affects only one single subpackage in multi-packages ports.

test

Run regression tests for the port. Essentially depend on a correct build and invoke

env -i ${ALL_TEST_ENV} ${MAKE_PROGRAM} ${ALL_TEST_FLAGS} \
	-f ${MAKE_FILE} ${TEST_TARGET} ${TEST_LOG}

If a port needs some other ports installed to run regression tests, use TEST_DEPENDS. If a port needs special configuration or build options to enable regression testing, define a ‘test’ FLAVOR.

test-depends

Before running regression tests, Install and verify dependencies constructed from TEST_DEPENDS.

unlock

Manually release a lock on a given directory. See lock.

update-patches

Create or update patches for a port, using update-patches(1). See EDIT_PATCHES.

update

Update an existing installation to a newer package: scan the installation for a package with the same FULLPKGPATH, and update it using ‘pkg_add -r’ if a newer package is available. In multi-packages ports, all relevant packages are updated. See UPDATE_COOKIES_DIR and FORCE_UPDATE as well.

However, see CAVEATS in ports(7): update is always ‘best-effort’ and will often not work correctly when updating to a significantly different newer version.

update-or-install

Update an installed package or perform a fresh installation, by using ‘pkg_add -r’. Handles one single package in multi-packages ports. See UPDATE_COOKIES_DIR and FORCE_UPDATE as well.

update-or-install-all

Update installed packages or perform a fresh installation, by using ‘pkg_add -r’. Handles all packages in multi-packages ports. See UPDATE_COOKIES_DIR and FORCE_UPDATE as well.

update-plist

Update the packing-lists for a port, using the fake installation and the existing packing lists, by invoking update-plist(1) with the correct parameters, along with port-specific options( UPDATE_PLIST_ARGS) and user settings( UPDATE_PLIST_OPTS). Also see SUBST_VARS for details about the default handling of variable substitution.

verbose-show

Similar to show, except that it prefixes each value with the variable name, e.g., VAR=value. Also note that it does not show undefined variables, contrary to show which outputs blank lines for these.

wantlib-args

Call port-wantlib-args and fake-wantlib-args and compare the results, errors out in case of discrepancies. See print-package-args.

VARIABLES

Note that some variables are marked as ‘User settings’, which means that individual ports should not modify them, and that some variables are marked as ‘read-only’, which means that they shouldn't ever be changed. In a MULTI_PACKAGES setup, some variables have settings specific to a given subpackage. See FLAVORS AND MULTI_PACKAGES.

show

Invoked as make show=name, show the contents of ${name}. Invoked as make show="name1 name2 ...", show the contents of ${name1} ${name2} ..., one variable value per line.

ALL_DISTFILES

List of all actual files coming from every DISTFILES* setting, after applying the ‘filename{url}sufx’ conversion, occasionally useful for setting EXTRACT_ONLY manually. Read-only.

ALL_FAKE_FLAGS

Flags passed to ${MAKE} invocations during the fake process. Equals ${MAKE_FLAGS} ${DESTDIRNAME}=${WRKINST} ${FAKE_FLAGS}. Read-only.

ALL_PATCHFILES

List of all actual files coming from every PATCHFILES* setting, after applying the ‘filename{url}sufx’ conversion. Read-only.

ALL_SUPDISTFILES

List of all actual files coming from every SUPDISTFILES* setting, after applying the ‘filename{url}sufx’ conversion. Read-only.

ALL_TEST_ENV

Environment passed to test. Equals ${MAKE_ENV} ${TEST_ENV}. Read-only.

ALL_TEST_FLAGS

Flags passed to ${MAKE} invocations during test. Equals ${MAKE_FLAGS} ${TEST_FLAGS}. Read-only.

ALL_TARGET

Target used to build software. Default is ‘all’. Can be set to empty, to yield a package's default target.

APM_ARCHS

Set to the list of apm(4) architectures. Read-only. Use with ONLY_FOR_ARCHS.

ARCH

Current machine architecture. Read-only.

AUTOCONF

Location of the autoconf binary if needed. Defaults to autoconf.

AUTOCONF_DIR

Where to invoke autoconf or autoreconf if ${CONFIGURE_STYLE} includes ‘autoconf’ or ‘autoreconf’, respectively. Defaults to ${WRKSRC}.

AUTOCONF_ENV

Environment values that should be passed to all runs of autoconf, automake and related tools. Specifically, version numbers and PATH. Automatically set as soon as CONFIGURE_STYLE is gnu or higher.

AUTOCONF_VERSION

Several versions of autoconf may coexist peacefully. The main autoconf script is a shell wrapper in the devel/metaauto package, and similarly for automake. Setting AUTOCONF_VERSION along with CONFIGURE_STYLE set to autoconf is the correct way to specify which one to use. AUTOCONF_VERSION defaults to 2.13. If autoconf must be run manually, MODGNU_AUTOCONF_DEPENDS can be used to specify what packages to depend upon.

AUTOHEADER

Location of the autoheader binary. Defaults to autoheader.

AUTOMAKE_VERSION

Several versions of automake may coexist peacefully. AUTOMAKE_VERSION must be set before trying to run automake. Defaults to 1.4.

AUTORECONF

Location of the autoreconf binary and the arguments it is invoked with. Can be set to ‘autogen.sh’ if such a script is available. Defaults to autoreconf --force --install.

BASE_PKGPATH

Full pkgpath(7) to the current port, taking flavors into account. See also BUILD_PKGPATH, which also includes pseudo-flavors. Read-only.

BASELOCALSTATEDIR

User settings. Base location for system-wide state directory. Defaults to ${VARBASE}. See LOCALSTATEDIR.

BASESYSCONFDIR

User settings. Base location for system-wide configuration files. Defaults to /etc. See SYSCONFDIR.

BATCH

User settings. Set to ‘Yes’ to avoid ports that require user-interaction. Use in conjunction with INTERACTIVE to simplify bulk-package builds. (See IGNORE).

BE_ARCHS

Set to the list of big-endian architectures. Read-only. Use with NOT_FOR_ARCHS and ONLY_FOR_ARCHS.

BUILD_DEPENDS

List of other ports the current port needs to build correctly. Each item has the form ‘[pkgspec:]pkgpath[:target]’. ‘target’ defaults to ‘install’. The package installed must conform to the ‘pkgspec’, which is by default obtained from the dependent ‘pkgpath’( see PKGSPEC). If no installation is involved, the infrastructure will still check that the directory would provide a package conforming to the ‘pkgspec’. ‘pkgpath’ is set relative to ${PORTSDIR}, see pkgpath(7) for details. Build dependencies are checked before the extract stage during prepare.

Build dependencies with a patch, configure or build target will be processed in a subdirectory of the working directory, specifically, in ${WRKDIR}/some/directory, with some/directory the directory part of the ‘pkgpath’.

BUILD_ONCE

User settings. Defaults to ‘No’. Set to ‘Yes’ during bulk builds.

When BUILD_ONCE is set to ‘Yes’, all PSEUDO_FLAVORS matching ‘no_*’ will be disabled, unless the special pseudo-flavor ‘bootstrap’ is also set.

This is a bulk build optimisation, automatically set by dpb(1): to avoid rebuilding the same package several times, a full bulk build will strip most ports of pseudo-packages variations that remove subpackages.

For instance, an individual package may depend on databases/db/v4,no_java,no_tcl, to avoid bringing a jdk in during a quick build. Nevertheless, during a full bulk build, databases/db/v4 will only be built once, as the pseudo-flavor will be automatically removed.

However, the extra ‘bootstrap’ rule is needed to take build cycles into account. For instance, the x11/gnome/gvfs,-goa subpackage depends on gnome-online-accounts, which in turn requires x11/gnome/gvfs,-main to build (through its dependencies). So x11/gnome/gvfs has PSEUDO_FLAVORS = no_smb no_goa bootstrap and the GNOME build first builds x11/gnome/gvfs,no_smb,no_goa,bootstrap,-main which is later used to rebuild x11/gnome/gvfs.

BUILD_PKGPATH

Full pkgpath(7) to the current port, taking flavors and pseudo-flavors into account. See also BASE_PKGPATH, which doesn't include pseudo-flavors. Mostly useful to write dependencies for subpackages like this: LIB_DEPENDS-foo=${BUILD_PKGPATH} and avoid starting to build a package with some other flavor combination. See pkgpath(7) on the subject of ‘pkgpath normalisation’. Read-only.

BUILD_PACKAGES

The actual list of packages that will be built, once architecture problems and pseudo-flavors have been taken into account. See FLAVORS AND MULTI_PACKAGES.

BROKEN

Define only for broken ports, set to reason the port is broken. See also NO_IGNORE, TRY_BROKEN.

BUILD_UNLINKED

User settings. List of tags that shouldn't be IGNOREd even though the ports are currently UNLINKED.

BUILD_USER

User to switch to when using PORTS_PRIVSEP, defaults to ‘_pbuild’.

BROKEN-<arch>

Define only for ports broken on a given architecture. Distinct from ONLY_FOR_ARCHS and NOT_FOR_ARCHS, which are used to mark ports for which support for some architectures does not exist at all, or is completely obsolete.

BSD_INSTALL_{PROGRAM,SCRIPT,DATA,MAN}[_DIR]

Macros passed to make and configure invocations. Set based on corresponding INSTALL_* variables.

BULK

User settings. If set to ‘Yes’, all successful package builds and installations will clean their working directories, after invoking any targets mentioned in BULK_TARGETS, and commands mentioned in BULK_DO. Can be set on a per-${PKGPATH} basis. For instance, setting BULK_misc/screen=No will override any BULK=Yes passed on the command line. If set to ‘Auto’, it will apply to dependencies, but not to the current port itself. See BULK_COOKIES_DIR. Defaults to ‘Auto’.

BULK_COOKIES_DIR

User settings. Used to store cookies for successful bulk-package builds, defaults to ${PORTSDIR}/bulk/${MACHINE_ARCH}.

BULK_DO

Commands to run after each bulk package build before cleaning up the working directory. Empty defaults. Can be set on a per-${PKGPATH} basis, e.g., BULK_DO_${PKGPATH}=...

BULK_FLAGS

Flags to pass to build each target in BULK_TARGETS.

BULK_TARGETS

Targets to run after each bulk package build before cleaning up the working directory. Empty defaults. Can be set on a per-${PKGPATH} basis, e.g., BULK_TARGETS_${PKGPATH}=...

BZIP2

Name of the bzip2 binary.

CATEGORIES

List of descriptive categories into which this port falls. Mandatory. One entry must match the current pkgpath: devel/gmake must belong to the ‘devel’ category.

CCACHE_DIR

Sets the cache directory used when USE_CCACHE is set to yes. Defaults to ${WRKOBJDIR}/.ccache.

CCACHE_ENV

Sets additional environment variables when USE_CCACHE is set to yes. For instance, to enable verbose logging, set CCACHE_ENV="CCACHE_LOGFILE=/tmp/ccache.log"

CDIAGFLAGS

Flags appended to CFLAGS if WARNINGS is set.

CFLAGS

Default flags passed to the compiler for building. Many ports ignore it. See also COPTS, CDIAGFLAGS.

CFLAGS_${CHOSEN_COMPILER}

Additional flags that will be appended to CFLAGS depending on the value of CHOSEN_COMPILER. Common usage pattern:

CFLAGS_base-clang =      -Wno-error=unused-but-set-variable

See also COMPILER, COMPILER_LANGS and CHOSEN_COMPILER.

CHECK_LIB_DEPENDS

User settings. If set to ‘Yes’, every package build will verify that shared libraries are correctly registered. This is essentially the same as running ‘make lib-depends-check’ after each package build. Defaults to ‘No’, as this can be a big performance hit, and also because lib-depends-check doesn't know about library subdirectories or dynamic loading through dlopen(3).

CHECK_LIB_DEPENDS_ARGS

List of extra arguments for check-lib-depends(1).

CHECKSUMFILES

List of all files that need to be retrieved by fetch, with DIST_SUBDIR prepended and with the master site selection extension removed. Read-only. See also MAKESUMFILES.

CHECKSUM_FILE

Location for this port's checksums, used by checksum, makesum, and dpb(1). Defaults to distinfo.

CHECKSUM_PACKAGES

User settings. Choose whether or not to checksum packages while building. Deposits result in ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/cksums/${FULLPKGNAME}.sha256. Can be set to ‘Yes’ to compute a checksum for all packages, or to ‘ftp’ to compute it only for PERMIT_PACKAGE packages. Defaults to ‘no’, which does not compute a checksum at all.

CHOSEN_COMPILER

Read-only. Compiler suite chosen by the COMPILER mechanism. Set to ‘irrelevant’ to disable COMPILER.

CLEANDEPENDS

If set to ‘Yes’, the clean target will also clean dependencies. Can be overridden on a per-${PKGPATH} basis, by setting CLEANDEPENDS_${PKGPATH}.

COMMENT

Short (no more than 60 characters) description of the port, used for the package and the INDEX. It should not start with an uppercase letter unless semantically significant.

COMMENT-foo

Same as COMMENT but used for sub package -foo in a multi-package setup.

COMMENT-vanilla

Same as COMMENT but used for a flavored package, if the non-flavored comment is inappropriate.

COMMENT-foo-vanilla

Same as COMMENT but used for a sub-, flavored package.

COMES_WITH

The first release where the port was made part of the standard distribution. If the current OpenBSD version is >= this version then a notice will be displayed instead of the port being built.

COMPILER

Select preferred compiler. First element in the list that matches will be chosen.

base-gcc

gcc 4.2 compiler from base

base-clang

clang compiler from base

ports-gcc

gcc compiler from ports (heeds MODGCC_ARCHS from the module)

ports-clang

clang compiler from ports (heeds MODCLANG_ARCHS from the module)

The first compiler that matches criteria will be chosen. On clang-based architectures ‘base-gcc’ never matches.

Defaults to base compilers, e.g., ‘base-clang base-gcc’.

Common reasons for explicitly setting COMPILER will most often be C++11 support, thread-local-storage support (emulated), atomic operations on some arches, sometimes assembler support, ABI compatibility with dependent/depending ports, or plain old internal compiler errors.

With COMPILER in effect, MODGCC_ARCHS and MODCLANG_ARCHS default to ‘${PORTSGCC_ARCHS}’ and ‘${LLVM_ARCHS}’ respectively.

ONLY_FOR_ARCHS will also be set if applicable.

COMPILER_LANGS

The value of COMPILER_LANGS will be added to the respective module's supported langs. Defaults to ‘c c++’. Only ‘c’ and ‘c++’ are supported by this mechanism. ‘fortran’ or ‘java’ still need old modules annotations, so that it's possible to select, e.g., ‘gfortran’ from gcc while having clang from base. See also CHOSEN_COMPILER.

COMPILER_LINKS

Used by bsd.port.mk and compiler MODULES to build scripts in ${WRKDIR}/bin to force setting compiler flags( -B is required for clang to find ${WRKDIR}/bin/ld as used by USE_WXNEEDED) and call COMPILER_WRAPPER if used.

COMPILER_WRAPPER

External program used to "wrap" compilers. Populated automatically by USE_CCACHE or can be set explicitly for other purposes (e.g. distcc).

CONFIG_SITE_LIST

Used when CONFIGURE_STYLE=gnu, or with MODULES += gnu. List of config.site fragments that will speed up gnu-configure, and prevent it from preferring various gnu programs, unless BUILD_DEPENDS explicitly ask for them. Read-only, available for debugging purposes.

CLANG_ARCHS, GCC4_ARCHS

List of architectures using Clang or GCC 4.2.1 as the base compiler. Read-only. Use with NOT_FOR_ARCHS or ONLY_FOR_ARCHS to limit ports to architectures where they compile.

CONFIGURE_ARGS

Arguments to pass to configure script. Defaults are empty, except for GNU-style configure, where prefix and sysconfdir are set.

CONFIGURE_ENV

Basic environment passed to configure script (path and libtool setup). GNU-style configure adds a lot more variables.

CONFIGURE_SCRIPT

Set to name of script invoked by the configure target, if appropriate. Should be either an absolute path, or relative to ${WRKSRC}.

CONFIGURE_STYLE

Set to style of configuration that needs to happen.

If ‘perl’, assume perl(1)'s ExtUtils::MakeMaker(3p) style. Add ‘modbuild’ to enable Module::Build(3p), ‘modbuild tiny’ to enable Module::Build::Tiny(3p), or ‘modinst’ for Module::Install(3p) style.

If ‘gnu’, ‘autoconf’, or ‘autoreconf’, assume GNU configure style. Add ‘dest’ if port does not handle DESTDIR correctly, and needs to be configured to add DESTDIR to prefixes( see also DESTDIRNAME). Add ‘old’ if port is an older autoconf port that does not recognize --sysconfdir. Use ‘autoconf’ if autoconf needs to be rerun first, but set ‘no-autoheader’ to prevent autoheader from running. Alternatively, use ‘autoreconf’ to rerun autoconf, automake, and related tools to completely regenerate the GNU build framework.

If ‘imake’, assume port configures using X11 ports Imakefile framework. Add ‘noman’ if port has no man pages the Imakefile should try installing.

If ‘simple’, there is a configure script, but it does not fit the normal GNU configure conventions.

Extensions may be defined by specific MODULES. See port-modules(5) for details.

COPTS

User settings. Supplementary options appended to ${CFLAGS} for building. Since most ports ignore the COPTS convention, they are actually told to use ${CFLAGS} ${COPTS} as CFLAGS.

CXXDIAGFLAGS

Flags appended to CXXFLAGS if WARNINGS is set.

CXXFLAGS

Default flags passed to the C++ compiler for building. Many ports ignore it.

CXXFLAGS_${CHOSEN_COMPILER}

Additional flags that will be appended to CXXFLAGS depending on the value of CHOSEN_COMPILER. See also COMPILER, COMPILER_LANGS and CHOSEN_COMPILER.

CXXOPTS

User settings. Supplementary options appended to ${CXXFLAGS} for building.

DEBUG_CONFIGURE_ARGS

Supplementary ${CONFIGURE_ARGS} for enabling the generation of debugging information.

DEBUG_PACKAGES

List of ${SUBPACKAGES} for which debug packages should be built "on the side". Usually set as DEBUG_PACKAGES=${BUILD_PACKAGES} for packages where debug information is desirable. Note the subpackages with PKG_ARCH=* will automatically be stripped from that list. See THE DEBUG_PACKAGES INFRASTRUCTURE below for details.

DEBUGINFO_ARCHS

List of architectures for which debug information may be provided as extra packages. Normally only amd64 and aarch64, for performance reasons.

DESCR

Location of description file for the package, defaults to ${PKGDIR}/DESCR (or ${PKGDIR}/DESCR${SUBPACKAGE} for multi-packages).

DESTDIR

See DESTDIRNAME.

DESTDIRNAME

Name of variable to set to ${WRKINST} while faking. Usually DESTDIR. To be used in the rare cases where a port heeds DESTDIR in a few directories and needs to be configured with ‘gnu dest’, so that those few directories do not get in the way.

DIST_TUPLE

List of distfile templates to use, each consisting of five entries: name account project tagname/commithash targetdir. The template name should be one of ‘codeberg’, ‘fdo’, ‘github’, ‘gitlab’, ‘gnome’, ‘kde’, or ‘srht’ at the moment (see ${PORTSDIR}/infrastructure/db/dist-tuple.pattern, additional TEMPLATE_DISTFILES.<name> and TEMPLATE_HOMEPAGE.<name> entries can be added as needed). The components are used to build SITES.name DISTFILES.name and (optionally) HOMEPAGE.

At the end of post-extract, the files are moved to ${WRKDIST}/<targetdir>. Using ‘.’ for targetdir will disable the move.

DISTDIR

User settings. Directory where all ports distribution files and patchfiles are stashed. Defaults to ${PORTSDIR}/distfiles. Override if distribution files are stored elsewhere. Always use FULLDISTDIR to refer to ports' distribution files location, as it takes an eventual DIST_SUBDIR into account.

DISTFILES*

The main port's distribution files (the actual software source, except for binary-only ports). Will be retrieved from the corresponding SITES* (see fetch), checksummed and extracted (see checksum, extract). DISTFILES normally holds a list of files.

Preferably, adding a suffix to DISTFILES, will switch the site entry to the corresponding SITES variable, e.g.,

DISTFILES.go = ...
SITES.go = ...

Each entry may optionally be of the form ‘filename{url}sufx’ to deal with sites that only offer archives as weird urls, doing the transfer of urlsufx into result file filenamesufx. For instance, if

DISTFILES = minetest-{minetest/archive/}${V}${EXTRACT_SUFX}

then fetch will retrieve from url ‘minetest/archive/${V}${EXTRACT_SUFX}’ into ‘minetest-${V}${EXTRACT_SUFX}’.

If ${DISTFILES*} varies depending on FLAVORS or architecture, use SUPDISTFILES* to ensure distfiles mirroring and makesum's proper operation.

If no DISTFILES* is set and if SITES is not null, then DISTFILES will be set to ${DISTNAME}${EXTRACT_SUFX}.

DISTNAME

Name used to identify the port. See DISTFILES* and PKGNAME.

DISTORIG

Suffix used by distpatch to rename original files. Defaults to .bak.orig. Distinct from PATCHORIG to avoid confusing update-patches.

DIST_SUBDIR

Optional subdirectory of ${DISTDIR} where the current port's distribution files and patchfiles will be located. See target fetch.

DPB

Set by the Distributed Ports Builder to only get the information it needs from dump-vars.

DPB_LOCKNAME

If set, dpb(1) will use this instead of the defaultPKGPATH- derived name. This feature comes with large restrictions and shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary. Specifically, it can allow dpb to build several flavors of the same port at the same time, but beware: under MULTI_PACKAGES and PSEUDO_FLAVORS conditions, if some of these packages are identical across flavors, this will not work. This also makes it harder to interact with locks if the names are not obvious.

DPB_PROPERTIES

Annotations for the Distributed Ports Builder. See dpb(1) for semantics.

DUMMY_PACKAGE

If defined, bsd.port.mk will provide dummy values for variables mandatory for a minimally functional port. Used by the sqlports package and dpb(1) to perform introspection and obtain bsd.port.mk's default values for variables without needing to access any specific port.

DWZ

Command line invocation of dwz(1) to shrink debug information while building debug packages. Defaults to ‘dwz -L 100000000’ Can be set to ‘:’ to not run dwz(1) at all. See THE DEBUG_PACKAGES INFRASTRUCTURE for details.

ECHO_MSG

User settings. Used to display ‘===> Configuring for foo’ and similar informative messages. Override to turn off, for instance.

ECHO_REORDER

User settings. Set it to ‘echo’ to see REORDER_DEPENDENCIES actions. Silent by default.

EDIT_PATCHES

User settings. If set to ‘No’, update-patches will not open changed files in an editor.

EPOCH

Epoch number of the current package. Used when the port version is changed but the new version is not regarded by packages-specs(7) as being newer. Once added, it cannot be removed or go backwards. Defaults to empty (no need for numbering changes), then numbering starts at 0. Gets automatically incorporated into FULLPKGNAME as ‘v${EPOCH}’ to form a full package-name conforming to packages-specs(7).

ERRORS

List of errors found while parsing the port's Makefile. Display the errors before making any target, and if any error starts with "Fatal":, do not make anything. For instance:

.if !defined(COMMENT)
ERRORS+="Fatal: Missing comment"
.endif

Porter can add to ERRORS, for instance to flag erroneous combinations of FLAVORS (but see ONLY_FOR_ARCHS NOT_FOR_ARCHS and BROKEN for other common issues).

Note that setting fatal errors defeats all introspection mechanisms and breaks the sqlports package.

Tip: if you need to debug a fatal error, you can always override ERRORS on the command line, e.g.,

make ERRORS= show=<var>

EXTRACT_CASES

The extraction stage runs a loop under ${WRKDIR} with archive (shell variable) set to each element of EXTRACT_ONLY in order, which is then processed by a case switch: ${EXTRACT_CASES}.

bsd.port.mk detects extensions in ${CHECKSUMFILES} and automatically adds BUILD_DEPENDS and fragments to handle the following archives:

gzip

tar.gz, tgz

tar

archivers/bzip2

tar.bz2, tbz2, tbz

archivers/xz

tar.xz, tar.lzma, tar.lz

archivers/unzip

zip

archivers/zstd

tar.zst, tar.zstd

converters/rpm2cpio

rpm

Other cases not supported directly in bsd.port.mk can be added, and existing cases can be overridden. For example the following snippet sets extra conversion flags to unzip, and adds support for rar:

	*.zip) ${UNZIP} -Laq ${FULLDISTDIR}/$$archive -d ${WRKDIR};; \
	*.rar) ${LOCALBASE}/bin/unrar x -idq ${DISTDIR}/$$archive;;

EXTRACT_ONLY

Set to the list of distfiles to actually extract if some distfiles should not be extracted during the do-extract stage. Defaults to ${ALL_DISTFILES}, can even be set to empty.

EXTRACT_SUFX

Used to set DISTFILES default value to ${DISTNAME}${EXTRACT_SUFX}. Default value is .tar.gz.

Note that DISTFILES will only be set in the absence of DISTFILES.sufx as well, or if SITES is not empty.

EXTRACT_SUFX.<name>

The EXTRACT_SUFX value for a template defined through DIST_TUPLE.

EXTRACT_FILES

Set to the list of files to actually extract from distfiles. Its content is subject to shell evaluation as part of EXTRACT_CASES and passed as file ... argument to tar(1) or unzip(1), e.g., glob(7) patterns and shell brace expansion may be used. Empty by default to extract all files.

FAKE_FLAGS

Extra flags passed to ${MAKE_PROGRAM} during the fake invocation. Empty by default. Also see ALL_FAKE_FLAGS.

FAKE_SETUP

List of environment values normally set during fake invocations. Exposed so that modules may provide their own do-install. Read-only, see THE FAKE FRAMEWORK section for details.

FAKE_TARGET

Target built by ${MAKE_PROGRAM} on fake invocation. Defaults to ${INSTALL_TARGET}.

FAKEOBJDIR

User settings. If non empty, used as a base for the fake staging area. The real fake directory ${WRKINST} is created there. Can be set on a per-${PKGPATH} basis. For instance, setting FAKEOBJDIR_www/mozilla-firefox=/tmp/obj will affect only the mozilla-firefox port.

FETCH_CMD

User settings. Command used to fetch distribution files for this port. Defaults to ftp(1). Can be used to go through excessively paranoid firewalls. Note that FETCH_CMD should support a few ftp options, chief among them being -C and -o dest, but also -m, -S, -v, -V. Most of these can be no-ops in a FETCH_CMD script, See ${PORTSDIR}/infrastructure/template/fetch_cmd.template for a skeleton script.

FETCH_MANUALLY

Some ports' distfiles cannot be fetched automatically for licensing reasons. In this case, set FETCH_MANUALLY to a list of strings that will be displayed, one per line, e.g.,

FETCH_MANUALLY= "You must fetch foo-1.0.tgz"
FETCH_MANUALLY+="from http://www.fubar.com/ manually,"
FETCH_MANUALLY+="after reading and agreeing to the license."

Behaves like IS_INTERACTIVE if some distribution files are missing.

FETCH_PACKAGES

User settings, defaults to ‘No’. Set to pkg_add(1) options. Instruct the package target to download packages missing from the repository from locations in ${PKG_PATH} and place them into ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/cache/, only building them if no suitable packages are found. For instance,

make FETCH_PACKAGES=

to use without any options, or

make FETCH_PACKAGES=-Dsnap

to use close to release.

FILESDIR

Location of other files related to the current port. Default: files.

FETCH_USER

User to use to fetch distfiles when using PORTS_PRIVSEP, defaults to ‘_pfetch’.

FIX_CLEANUP_PERMISSIONS

If ‘Yes’, restore read, write and directory search permissions for the build user on ${WRKDIR} before running clean. Used for build systems which set paranoid permissions at build time. Defaults to ‘No’.

FIX_CRLF_FILES

Name(s) of files with line endings to correct at the end of distpatch. Sometimes a port will include files with MS-DOS line endings (CR LF). To avoid problems with patches (especially when sent by email) these should be converted to LF. bsd.port.mk changes to WRKDIST before converting files - shell wildcards may be used.

FIX_EXTRACT_PERMISSIONS

If ‘Yes’, restore contents of ${WRKDIR} to world-readable at the end of extract. Used for some distfile contents which have paranoid permissions for no reason. Defaults to ‘No’.

FLAVOR

The port's current options. Set by the user, and tested by the port to activate wanted functionalities.

FLAVORS

List of all flavors keywords a port may match. Used to sort FLAVOR into a canonical order to build the package name, or to select the packing-list, and as a quick validity check. See also PSEUDO_FLAVORS.

FLAVOR_EXT

Canonical list of flavors being set for the current build, dash-separated. See FULLPKGNAME.

FORCE_UPDATE

User settings. If set to ‘Yes’, the update target will always update an installed package, as soon as its signature differs, and all dependencies that install packages will also force an update. If set to ‘hard’, the update target will also update installed packages even when the signature did not change.

FULLDISTDIR

Complete path to directory where ${DISTFILES*} ${SUPDISTFILES*} and ${PATCHFILES*} will be located, to be used in hand-crafted extraction targets. Read-only.

FULLPKGNAME

Full name of the created package, taking flavors into account. Defaults to ${PKGNAME}${FLAVOR_EXT}. See also EPOCH and REVISION.

FULLPKGPATH

Path to the current port's directory, relative to ${PORTSDIR}, including flavors and subpackages. See pkgpath(7).

GH_*

Simple support for GitHub-hosted projects. Leave empty for non hosted projects. Yields a suitable default for SITES_GITHUB and DISTNAME.

Use DIST_TUPLE for more complicated situations.

GH_ACCOUNT

Account name of the GitHub user hosting the project.

GH_COMMIT

SHA1 commit id to fetch. It is an error to specify ${GH_COMMIT} when ${GH_TAGNAME} is specified.

GH_DISTFILE

Set by bsd.port.mk to the generated name of the distribution file. This can be useful for ports listing multiple DISTFILES*.

GH_PROJECT

Name of the project on GitHub.

GH_TAGNAME

Name of the tag to download. Setting ${GH_TAGNAME} to master is invalid and will throw an error. ${WRKDIST} is auto-generated based on the ${GH_TAGNAME} if specified, otherwise ${GH_COMMIT} will be used to generate ${WRKDIST}.

GMAKE

Location of the GNU make binary, if needed. Defaults to gmake.

HOMEPAGE

URL to the homepage of the software, if applicable.

IGNORE

For ignored ports, set to the reasons for which the port is ignored. If non-empty, most common targets that do something (e.g., fetch, build, install ...) will be ignored. See also BATCH, BUILD_UNLINKED, BROKEN, FETCH_MANUALLY, IGNORE_IS_FATAL, IGNORE_SILENT, INTERACTIVE, IS_INTERACTIVE, NOT_FOR_ARCHS, NO_IGNORE, ONLY_FOR_ARCHS, UNLINKED.

IGNORE_IS_FATAL

User settings. If set to ‘Yes’, ignored ports will become fatal errors.

IGNORE_SILENT

User settings. If set to ‘Yes’, do not print anything when ignoring a port.

INSTALL_DEBUG_PACKAGES

User settings. Defaults to ‘No’. If ‘Yes’, install available debug packages during all install/update targets.

INSTALL_{PROGRAM,SCRIPT,DATA,MAN}[_DIR]

Macros to use to install a program, a script, data, or a man page (or the corresponding directory), respectively.

INSTALL_TARGET

Target invoked to install the software, during fake installation. Default is ‘install’.

INTERACTIVE

User settings. Set to ‘Yes’ to skip all non-interactive ports. Used in conjunction with BATCH to simplify bulk-package builds.

IS_INTERACTIVE

Set to ‘Yes’ if port needs human interaction to build.

Note that IS_INTERACTIVE ports won't be built as official packages, so avoid at all cost.

Human intervention should be moved to binary package installation and/or post-installation configuration instead.

Discrete Yes/No choices are better modelled as FLAVORS.

LE_ARCHS

Set to the list of little-endian architectures. Read-only. Use with NOT_FOR_ARCHS and ONLY_FOR_ARCHS.

LIB_DEPENDS

List of packages used by a port for its library dependencies. Each item has the form ‘[pkgspec:]pkgpath’. Similar to BUILD_DEPENDS and RUN_DEPENDS, but with specific rules: LIB_DEPENDS always turn into BUILD_DEPENDS( but see FLAVORS AND MULTI PACKAGES).

LIB_DEPENDS is also used as a run-time dependency, and recorded in the package as such, if any of the libraries mentioned in WANTLIB is a shared library that originates within the dependent port.

See library-specs(7) for more details.

lib_depends_args

Controls the behavior of pkg_create(1) related targets, see print-package-args for details.

LIBCXX

List of standard C++ libraries for the base compiler. Read-only. Use in WANTLIB.

LIBTOOL

Location of the libtool binary. Default: /usr/bin/libtool.

LIBTOOL_FLAGS

Arguments to pass to libtool. If USE_LIBTOOL is set, the environment variable LIBTOOL is set to ${LIBTOOL} ${LIBTOOL_FLAGS}.

LLD_EMUL

As ld.lld(1) does not have a default emulation mode, if it is the linker in-use, LLD_EMUL defaults to the correct option to set the emulation mode; Otherwise, it stays empty. Read-only. Seldom used, as it is only needed to link binary data without using the compiler.

LLVM_ARCHS

Set to the list of architectures where LLVM/Clang could be used, e.g., via ‘lang/clang’ port module, see port-modules(5). Read-only. Use with NOT_FOR_ARCHS or ONLY_FOR_ARCHS.

LOCALBASE

where other ports have already been installed. Default: /usr/local.

LOCALSTATEDIR

Location for this port's state directory, should always be derived from BASELOCALSTATEDIR, which defaults to /var. Passed to gnu configure scripts.

LOCKDIR

User settings. Defaults to ${WRKOBJDIR}/locks. If set, points to a local directory common for all instances of concurrent ports builds.

LOCK_CMD

User settings. Expands to a command that will acquire a lock, namely portlock(1). See also ports(7).

LOCK_VERBOSE

User settings. Defaults to ‘No’. Set to ‘Yes’ to show every acquire/release lock operation.

LP64_ARCHS

Set to the list of 64-bit architectures. Read-only. Use with NOT_FOR_ARCHS.

MAINTAINER

Email address with full name of the port's maintainer. Defaults to [email protected].

MAKE_ENV

Environment variables passed to make invocations and tests. Sets at least PATH, PREFIX, LOCALBASE, X11BASE, CFLAGS, TRUEPREFIX, DESTDIR, and the BSD_INSTALL_* macros.

MAKE_FLAGS

Flags used for all make invocations, except for the fake stage, which adds FAKE_FLAGS (see ALL_FAKE_FLAGS) and for the test stage, which adds TEST_FLAGS (see ALL_TEST_FLAGS).

MAKE_FILE

Name of the Makefile used for ports building. Defaults to Makefile. Used after changing directory to ${WRKBUILD}.

MAKE_JOBS

Number of jobs to use when building the port, normally passed to MAKE_PROGRAM through PARALLEL_MAKE_FLAGS. Mostly set automatically when DPB_PROPERTIES contains ‘parallel’.

Note that make(1) still has bugs that may prevent parallel build from working correctly!

MAKE_PROGRAM

The make program that is used for building the port. Set to ${MAKE} or ${GMAKE} depending on USE_GMAKE. Read-only.

MAKEFILE_LIST

Introspection variable, see make(1).

MAKESUMFILES

List of all files that need to be retrieved by fetch-all, with DIST_SUBDIR prepended and with master site selection extension removed. Read-only. See also CHECKSUMFILES.

MESSAGE

File recorded in the package and displayed during installation. Defaults to ${PKGDIR}/MESSAGE if this file exists. Leave empty if no message is needed.

MISSING_FILES

When FETCH_MANUALLY is set, MISSING_FILES will contain the list of missing distfiles or patchfiles that need to be fetched manually. Read-only.

MODGNU_CONFIG_GUESS_DIRS

If a port uses config.guess outside WRKSRC, the directories containing the other copies must be set here.

MODPERL_ADJ_FILES

If any files have a Perl shebang line, which needs to be replaced with “#!/usr/bin/perl”, list them in MODPERL_ADJ_FILES. File paths here should be relative to WRKSRC. These files are patched automatically at the end of pre-configure.

MODPERL_BIN_ADJ

Shell fragment to patch the Perl interpreter path in executable scripts. Used by MODPERL_ADJ_FILES.

MODPERL_BUILD_TARGET

Normal content of do-build when CONFIGURE_STYLE uses perl. Provided as a separate variable if a port wants to override do-build for its own reasons.

MODPERL_INSTALL_TARGET

Likewise for do-install.

MODPERL_TEST_TARGET

Likewise for do-test.

MODPERL_REGEN_PPPORT

Normally, if ppport.h is present, it will be regenerated using a current version of Devel::PPPort(3p). Set to the filename under ${WRKSRC}, or ‘No’ to disable. Defaults to ‘ppport.h’.

MODULES

External modules mechanism, documented separately. Modules such as ‘imake’ and ‘gnu’ are normally included automatically with the right CONFIGURE_STYLE. Note that it is possible to CONFIGURE_STYLE = simple, MODULES += gnu to just get the effects of CONFIG_SITE and MODGNU_CONFIG_GUESS_DIRS along with the default TEST_TARGET, in case the normal GNU configure script was wrapped in a separate script that takes different arguments. See port-modules(5).

MULTI_PACKAGES

Set to a list of subpackage extensions for ports that create multiple packages. See FLAVORS AND MULTI_PACKAGES below. Especially read the part about ONLY_FOR_ARCHS when some of the packages only exist for some architectures.

NO_ARCH

Location for arch-independent packages. Defaults to ‘no-arch’. Normally, packages are generated under ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}, except for packages where PKG_ARCH=*, which end up under ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${NO_ARCH}.

NOT_FOR_ARCHS

List of architectures on which this port does not build. See also ONLY_FOR_ARCHS.

NO_BUILD

Set to ‘Yes’ if port does not need any build stage.

NO_CCACHE

Set to ‘Yes’ to prevent ccache from being used when building a certain port, even when USE_CCACHE is set.

NO_CHECKSUM

Set to ‘Yes’ by dpb(1) to avoid checksum entirely, as dpb(1) already deals with checksums internally.

NO_DEPENDS

User settings. Don't verify build of dependencies. Do not use in any ports Makefile. This is only meant as a user convenience when, e.g., you just want to browse through a given port's source and do not wish to trigger the build of dependencies.

NO_IGNORE

User settings. If set to ‘Yes’, avoid ignoring a port for the usual reasons. Use, for instance, for fetching all distribution files, or for fixing a broken port. See also IGNORE and TRY_BROKEN.

NO_SCCACHE

Set to ‘Yes’ to prevent sccache from being used when building a certain port, even when USE_SCCACHE is set.

NO_TEST

Port does not have any regression tests. Only set to ‘Yes’ for ports with no regression test. It should be left alone for ports with empty regression tests, and for ports with failing tests. That way, if a subsequent update of a port acquires actual regression tests, they will be picked up automatically.

ONLY_FOR_ARCHS

List of architectures on which this port builds. Can hold both processor-specific information (e.g., powerpc), and more specific model information (e.g., macppc). This is subpackage dependent. Read the corresponding part of FLAVORS AND MULTI_PACKAGES if some subpackages should only be built on some architectures.

OSREV

Revision number of OpenBSD. Read-only.

PACKAGE_REPOSITORY

User settings. Location for built packages. Defaults to ${PORTSDIR}/packages. See the package target for details.

PARALLEL_MAKE_FLAGS

Used when DPB_PROPERTIES contains ‘parallel’. Flags to pass to MAKE_PROGRAM to yield a parallel build. Defaults to -j${MAKE_JOBS}. Mostly set to empty by ports that use other mechanisms for setting the number of jobs.

PARALLEL_MAKE_JOBS

User settings. Value of MAKE_JOBS to use when building manually a port with DPB_PROPERTIES containing ‘parallel’. Defaults to the number of online cpus.

PATCH

Command to use to apply all patches. Defaults to /usr/bin/patch.

PATCHORIG

Suffix used by patch to rename original files, and update-patches to re-generate ${PATCHDIR}/${PATCH_LIST} by looking for files using this suffix. Defaults to .orig.port. In the unlikely event that one of the ${DISTFILES*} already contains .orig.port files, set this to something else, such as .orig.obsdport. See also distpatch, DISTORIG.

PATCH_CASES

In the normal distpatch stage (when PATCHFILES* is not empty), this is the contents of a case statement, used to apply distribution patches. Fragments are automatically appended to handle gzip'ed, bzip'ed and lzip'ed patches, so that the default case is more or less equivalent to the following shell fragment:

set -e
cd ${FULLDISTDIR}
for patchfile in ${ALL_PATCHFILES}
do
    case $$patchfile in
	*.bz2)
	  ${BZIP2} -d <$$patchfile | ${PATCH} ${PATCH_DIST_ARGS};;
	*.zst|*.zstd)
	  zstdcat -c <$$patchfile | ${PATCH} ${PATCH_DIST_ARGS};;
	*.Z|*.gz)
	  ${GZIP_CMD} -d <$$patchfile | ${PATCH} ${PATCH_DIST_ARGS};;
	*)
	  ${PATCH} ${PATCH_DIST_ARGS} <$$patchfile;;
    esac
done

PATCHDIR

Location for patches applied by the patch target. Default: patches.

PATCHFILES*

Files to fetch from the master sites like DISTFILES*, but serving a different purpose, as they hold distribution patches that will be applied at the patch stage. See also SUPDISTFILES*.

PATCH_ARGS

Full list of options used while applying port's patches.

PATCH_CHECK_ONLY

Set to ‘Yes’ by the checkpatch target. Don't touch unless the default checkpatch target needs to be redefined. Ideally, user-defined patch subtargets ought to test checkpatch. In practice, they don't.

PATCH_DIST_ARGS

Full list of options used while applying distribution patches.

PATCH_DIST_STRIP

Patch option used to strip directory levels while applying distribution patches. Defaults to -p0.

PATCH_LIST

Wildcard pattern of patches to select under ${PATCHDIR}. Defaults to patch-*. Note that filenames ending in .orig, or ~ are never applied. Note that PATCH_LIST can hold absolute pathnames, for instance to share patches among similar ports:

PATCH_LIST=${PORTSDIR}/x11/kde/libs2/patches/p-* patch-*

But beware that minor variations will result in update-patches creating useless churn !

PATCH_QUIET

User settings. If set to ‘Yes’, PATCH will work quietly.

PATCH_STRIP

Patch option used to strip directory levels while applying port's patches. Defaults to -p0.

PERMIT_DISTFILES, PERMIT_PACKAGE

Set to ‘Yes’ if the distribution files or the package can be allowed on FTP sites without legal issues. Set to reason not to otherwise. PERMIT_* lines in the Makefile should be preceded with a comment explaining details about licensing and patents issues the port may have. Porters must be very thorough in their checks. In case of doubt, ask.

If PERMIT_PACKAGE is set to ‘Yes’, PERMIT_DISTFILES will default to ‘Yes’.

PKG_ADD

User settings. Path to pkg_add(1) command, with possible options.

PKG_ARCH

Comma-separated list of architectures on which this package may install. Defaults to ${MACHINE_ARCH},${ARCH}.

For instance: MACHINE_ARCH=powerpc, ARCH=macppc.

Most (if not all packages) will install correctly according to MACHINE_ARCH.

Use * for arch-independent packages( see also THE DEBUG_PACKAGES INFRASTRUCTURE).

PKG_ARGS

Special arguments to pass to pkg_create(1), in addition to the default ones.

PKG_CREATE

User settings. Path to pkg_create(1) command, with possible options.

PKG_CREATE_NO_CHECKS

Porters switch. Set to ‘Yes’ to avoid checking the ports tree when solving WANTLIB( see wantlib-args). May result in bogus packages that mix @depends lines obtained from the ports tree with @wantlib lines that come from the installed system. Set to ‘Warn’ to have the differences printed as a warning instead of an error( the default).

PKG_DBDIR

User settings. Path to package installation records. Defaults to /var/db/pkg.

PKG_DELETE

User settings. Path to pkg_delete(1) command, with possible options.

PKG_INFO

User settings. Path to pkg_info(1) command, with possible options.

PKG_TMPDIR

See pkg_add(1). Normally points to /var/tmp, as per default.

PORTHOME

Setting of env variable HOME for most shell invocations. Default will trip ports that try to write into $HOME while building: non-existent /${PKGPATH}_writes_to_HOME/.

PORTPATH

Path used by most shell invocations. Don't override unless really needed.

PORTSDIR

Root of the ports tree (default: /usr/ports).

PORTSDIR_PATH

Path used by dependencies and bsd.port.subdir.mk to look up package specifications. Defaults to ${PORTSDIR}:${PORTSDIR}/mystuff.

PORTS_PRIVSEP

If set to ‘Yes’, will build ports as BUILD_USER and fetch distfiles as FETCH_USER.

To work fully, this does require the ports tree to be world-readable, and ${WRKDIR} to be world-readable as well( update-patches and friends won't work otherwise).

Meant to use in concert with dpb(1), which uses the same permissions( see ‘THE SECURITY MODEL OF DPB’ in dpb(1)).

Basically, BUILD_USER must be able to write into ${WRKOBJDIR}, ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}, ${PLIST_REPOSITORY} and FETCH_USER must be able to write into ${DISTDIR}. The directories and permissions can be set correctly using fix-permissions.

The regular user must be allowed to execute commands as BUILD_USER and FETCH_USER. Running commands as another user can be achieved with doas(1) by setting SUDO=doas in mk.conf(5) and using the following minimal doas.conf(5):

permit keepenv nopass solene as _pbuild
permit keepenv nopass solene as _pfetch

It is reasonably safe to allow your user id to run commands as the BUILD_USER or FETCH_USER and using nopass for these can save a lot of password entry, however it is inadvisable to allow commands like pkg_add(1) to run as root without a password.

Note that this also means that doas(1) must be configured to work within the chroot created by proot(1).

As dpb(1) does its own privilege dropping when run as root, it will automatically override PORTS_PRIVSEP.

User settings, defaults to ‘No’.

PKGDIR

Location for packaging information (packing-list, port description, messages). update-plist may create it. Must be a valid directory. Default: pkg.

PKGFILE

Full path to the created package for the given subpackage. Read-only.

PKGFILES

Full path to all created packages. Read-only.

PKGNAME

Name of the created package. Default is ${DISTNAME}. This does not take flavors into account. See FULLPKGNAME for that. Specific revisions and epoch changes should be handled by REVISION and EPOCH instead.

PKGNAMES

Read-only. List of all package names generated by the port, with FLAVORS and BUILD_PACKAGES taken into account. Mostly used as ‘make show=PKGNAMES’ to verify that bumped package names are correct.

PKGNAME-foo

Package name for sub-package foo, if the default value of ${PKGNAME}${SUBPACKAGE} is not appropriate.

PKGPATH

Path to the current port's directory, relative to ${PORTSDIR}. Read-only.

PKGPATHS

Read-only. List of all package paths generated by the port, with FLAVORS and MULTI_PACKAGES taken into account. Order matches PKGNAMES exactly.

PKGSPEC

Default package spec for using this port as a dependency. Defaults to ‘stem-*’, derived from the FULLPKGNAME. Do not override without very good reasons, namely software that coexist as different incompatible versions with the same stem, e.g., already a mess. Also See the description of -P in pkg_create(1)

PKGSTEM

Base for the package name without any version number. Used in READMEs file names and actual contents, can be overridden for ports with branches, like php, e.g., PKGSTEM-main = php-5.6

PLIST

Location of package packing-list. Defaults to ${PKGDIR}/PLIST, or to ${PKGDIR}/PLIST${SUBPACKAGE} for multi-packages.

PLIST_DB

Deprecated, see PLIST_REPOSITORY.

PLIST_REPOSITORY

User settings. Base directory used to save generated packing-lists, as persistent information. Packing-lists are processed by a script, register-plist(1), which complains when packing-lists change without a REVISION bump. It also knows enough about package version numbers when something in the package or its dependencies goes backward, thus catching EPOCH issues. This directory is never cleaned during normal operation. ‘make clean=plist’ should only ever be used during debugging by port maintainers. Defaults to ${PORTSDIR}/plist( plists actually get saved into ${PLIST_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}). If set to empty, will not register anything: very much unsafe.

PORTROACH

Controls the behavior of misc/portroach as documented in detail at https://jasperla.github.io/portroach/docs/portroach-portconfig.txt

PREFIX

Base directory for the current port installation. Usually ${LOCALBASE}, though some ports may elect a location under ${VARBASE}, and some multi-package ports may install under several locations. Additionally, firmware files generally install under ${BASESYSCONFDIR}.

PREPARE_CHECK_ONLY

Build settings. Prevent the prepare stage from installing anything, let it just check dependencies, and handle [:target] dependencies. Mostly used by dpb(1), which already installs everything before running prepare.

PROGRESS_METER

User settings. Defaults to ‘Yes’. Forces commands like ftp(1) and pkg_create(1) to use their progress-meter even in the absence of a terminal.

PROPERTIES

List of properties specific to a given machine architecture, obtained through the inclusion of bsd.port.arch.mk(5). These can be checked like this

.include <bsd.port.arch.mk>
.if ${PROPERTIES:Mapm}
# then add build options specific to apm arches
...
.if !${PROPERTIES:Mlp64}
# build options specific to lp32 arches
...

For MULTI_PACKAGES setup, use of ONLY_FOR_ARCHS-sub and BUILD_PACKAGES is generally preferred (and simpler). Possible properties include

apm: architecture possesses suspend (apm) support.
be: architecture is big-endian.
gccN: gccN architecture.
le: architecture is little-endian.
lp64: lp64 architecture.
llvm: there is lang/llvm support on this architecture.
mono: there is lang/mono support on this architecture.

PSEUDO_FLAVOR

List of flavors in FLAVOR that are actually pseudo-flavors. Only for introspection purposes. Read-only.

PSEUDO_FLAVORS

Extra list of flavors that do not register in package names, but are still used to control build logic, and work directory names. Its only use should be for disabling part of a multi-packages build, for instance:

FLAVOR=no_gnome make package

Pseudo-flavors should be named as ‘no_something’ to disable the build of subpackage ‘-something’( and possibly some others, by restricting BUILD_PACKAGES). Pseudo-flavors should always be handled through bsd.port.arch.mk(5). A pseudo-flavor can remove several subpackages through the following construct.

# pseudo-flavor no_gui will also remove gtk and gtk3
MULTI_PACKAGES = -main -gtk -gtk3 -gui
# ...
.include <bsd.port.arch.mk>
# remove extra build components
.if !${BUILD_PACKAGES:M-gui}
BUILD_PACKAGES := ${BUILD_PACKAGES:N-gtk:N-gtk3}
.endif
# normal configure setup, e.g.,
.if ${BUILD_PACKAGES:M-gtk}
# ...

Caveat: creation of a separate working directory is mandatory for a pseudo-flavor. If, at a later time, a full build with all subpackages is required, all the work will need to be done again.

THE FAKE FRAMEWORK

The fake target is used to install the port under a staging directory first, ready for packaging by the package target, so that the actual install target will use the binary package instead.

Essentially, fake invokes the install process after tweaking a few variables.

fake first creates a skeleton tree under ${WRKINST}, using mkdir(1) -p.

A pre-fake target may be used to complete that skeleton tree. For instance, a few ports may need supplementary stuff to be present (as it would be installed if the port's dependencies were present).

In most cases, pre-install is preferred.

If {pre,do,post}-install overrides are present, they are used with some important changes, listed in FAKE_SETUP:

TRUEPREFIX=${PREFIX}
PREFIX=${WRKINST}${PREFIX}
${DESTDIRNAME}=${WRKINST}

Essentially, old install targets work transparently, except for a need to change PREFIX to TRUEPREFIX for symbolic links and similar path lookups. Specific traditional post install work can be simply removed, as it will be taken care of by the package itself (for instance, ldconfig, or texinfo's install-info).

If no do-install override is present, the port is installed using

env -i ${MAKE_ENV} ${FAKE_SETUP} ${MAKE_PROGRAM} ${ALL_FAKE_FLAGS} -f ${MAKE_FILE} ${FAKE_TARGET}

Note that this does set both PREFIX and ${DESTDIRNAME}. If a port's Makefile both heeds ${DESTDIRNAME}, and references PREFIX explicitly, FAKE_FLAGS may rectify the problem by setting PREFIX=${PREFIX} (which will do the right thing, since ${PREFIX} is a make(1) construct which will not be seen by the shell).

${FAKE_FLAGS} is used to set variables on make(1) command line, which will override the port Makefile contents. Thus, a port that mentions DESTDIR= does not need any patch to work with fake.

Files such as ${PKGDIR}/README* or ${PKGDIR}/*.rc get copied to ${WRKINST} right after the end of fake, during generate-readmes (see the FILES section above for details).

THE DEBUG_PACKAGES INFRASTRUCTURE

If DEBUG_PACKAGES is not empty, debug packages will be built "on the side". Since debug information is usually large, this is controlled on a per-arch basis with DEBUGINFO_ARCHS controlling the behavior (set to amd64 by default).

During the normal package target , build-debug-info(1) will be invoked to deduce debug packing-lists from the normal packing-lists, and some extra makefile rules will be invoked to set aside the debug information, and shrink it by processing it through ${DWZ}.

Then each normal package will have a "shadow" debug-* package built alongside it, with the exact same package signature, except it will also be tied closely with the normal package.

Figuring out what files contain debug information is entirely achieved through @bin, @lib, @so and @static-lib annotations in the base packing-lists.

Debug packages will be produced for all subpackages in DEBUG_PACKAGES. Usually, the heuristics of trimming arch-independent packages from BUILD_PACKAGES is enough. In case this still produces empty debug packages, the DEBUG_PACKAGES list should be produced manually.

The actual debug packages are not registered through register-plist(1) since the information was automatically generated.

debug package names and debug package filenames are added to PKGNAMES and PKGFILES respectively for introspection purpose.

egdb(1) from ports can read debug information from a separate file, as long as the original ELF file was annotated with a debuginfo link.

That feature is used to set debug information on the side, in .debug/ subdirectories alongside the normal binaries, shared objects and shared libraries.

For static libraries, the information can't be separated, instead the full static library with debug information is provided in the .debug/ subdirectory, while the normal static library gets stripped.

FLAVORS AND MULTI_PACKAGES

Starting with OpenBSD 2.7, each port can generate distinct packages through two orthogonal mechanisms: FLAVORS and MULTI_PACKAGES.

The current MULTI_PACKAGES mechanism was introduced after OpenBSD 4.0.

The arch-dependent part was refined after OpenBSD 5.0.

If a port can be compiled with several options, these options should be turned into FLAVORS. The port maintainer will set FLAVORS to be the list of possible options in the Makefile. When building the port, the package builder will set FLAVOR='option1 option2...' to build a specific flavor of the port. The Makefile should test the value of FLAVOR as follows:

FLAVOR?=
.if ${FLAVOR:Moption1}
# what to do if option1
.endif
.if ${FLAVOR:Moption2}
# what to do if option2
.endif

bsd.port.mk takes care of a few details, such as generating a distinct work directory for each flavor, or creating a FULLPKGNAME by adding a dash separated list of flavors to the base package name. The order in which FLAVOR is specified does not matter: this dash separated list will be reordered to match the ordering of FLAVORS.

It is an error to specify an option in FLAVOR that does not appear in FLAVORS, to prevent misspellings.

In bulk package building, flavors can be specified as a comma separated list after the package directory, e.g., SUBDIR+=vim,no_x11( see pkgpath(7))

Finally, package information will use templates with the canonical package extension if they are available: if FLAVOR='option1 option2' and both COMMENT and COMMENT-option1-option2 are available, COMMENT-option1-option2 will be used.

If one build of a port can generate several distinct packages, set MULTI_PACKAGES accordingly. Each extension of a MULTI_PACKAGES name should start with a dash, so that they cannot be confused with FLAVORS. In dependency checking and bulk builds, a subpackage can be specified after a comma, e.g., SUBDIR+=quake,-server. MULTI_PACKAGES only affects the actual package building step.

If MULTI_PACKAGES is set, the packaging stage happens once for every subpackage, using subpackage-specific variables. For instance, if MULTI_PACKAGES=-main -lib -server, PKG_ARCH-main, PKG_ARCH-lib and PKG_ARCH-server will be used for the subpackages respectively called FULLPKGNAME-main, FULLPKGNAME-lib and FULLPKGNAME-server.

All package information is also derived from templates with SUBPACKAGE appended. In the preceding example, the packing-list template for FULLPKGNAME-lib must be in PLIST-lib.

The following variables are subpackage dependent: COMMENT, PKG_ARCH, PERMIT_PACKAGE, PKGFILE, PKGNAME, PKGSTEM, FULLPKGNAME, REVISION, EPOCH, FULLPKGPATH, RUN_DEPENDS, WANTLIB, LIB_DEPENDS, IGNORE, ONLY_FOR_ARCHS, NOT_FOR_ARCHS, PKG_ARGS, PREFIX, CATEGORIES, MESSAGE, UNMESSAGE, DESCR, PLIST, STATIC_PLIST, PKGSPEC.

The usual non-MULTI_PACKAGES variables are simply used as default values for all subpackages. So, if you set PKG_ARCH=* PKG_ARCH-main=i386 then PKG_ARCH-lib and PKG_ARCH-server will both be ‘*’.

WANTLIB and LIB_DEPENDS are special. At the beginning of the build, during prepare, all build dependencies will be checked, which includes LIB_DEPENDS, WANTLIB for every subpackage. As an exception, any LIB_DEPENDS-sub that references the current port will be ignored as a build dependency, in order to avoid recursion.

FULLPKGPATH and FULLPKGNAME are special as well. If PKGNAME is <stem>-<version>, then PKGNAME-sub will be set to <stem>-sub-<version> by default, except for PKGNAME-main which has PKGNAME as a default. Normally, FULLPKGPATH-sub is automatically set to the right value, but in very rare cases, one may need to override the default: for instance, if one specific subpackage is not affected by flavor settings that affect other subpackages, e.g., for include files packs, then the flavoring part of the fullpkgpath may need to be dropped.

In terms of using the port, quite a few targets will have a subpackage specific subtarget: invoking package is the same as invoking subpackage for all subpackages, invoking install-all is the same as invoking install for all subpackages, and invoking update is the same as invoking subupdate for all subpackages.

ONLY_FOR_ARCHS and NOT_FOR_ARCHS interact with MULTI_PACKAGES and IGNORE. The infrastructure will automatically filter subpackages that are not suitable for the current architecture. Thus, MULTI_PACKAGES should always list all subpackages, even things not buildable on the current architecture, for indexing purposes.

Starting with OpenBSD 5.1, bsd.port.arch.mk(5) should be used to simplify the handling of MULTI_PACKAGES in arch-dependent setups:

Make sure MULTI_PACKAGES, ONLY_FOR_ARCHS*, and PSEUDO_FLAVORS are defined correctly, then

.include <bsd.port.arch.mk>

This will compute BUILD_PACKAGES, the list of actual subpackages to build with the current setup, by taking arch constraints and pseudo-flavors into account. Then test BUILD_PACKAGES to set up the right configuration, e.g., to check if SUBPACKAGE -mono should be built:

.if ${BUILD_PACKAGES:M-mono}

The lang/gcc or print/poppler ports should provide examples of proper use.

Note that dpb(1) will break if all subpackages are not properly listed.

THE GENERATION OF PACKAGE INFORMATION

Starting after OpenBSD 4.1 all package information is processed directly by pkg_create(1) from templates in ${PKG_DIR}.

If not overridden by the user, determine which set of templates to use, depending on the current SUBPACKAGE and FLAVOR information. Set PLIST${SUBPACKAGE}, DESCR${SUBPACKAGE}, COMMENT${SUBPACKAGE}, MESSAGE${SUBPACKAGE}, UNMESSAGE${SUBPACKAGE} accordingly.
Generate the actual DESCR, and if needed, MESSAGE, UNMESSAGE, from the templates in ${DESCR}, ${MESSAGE}, ${UNMESSAGE}, by substituting the variables in ${SUBST_VARS}, and by substituting ${FLAVORS} with the canonical flavor extension for this port, e.g., if FLAVORS=no_map gfx qt2, if FLAVOR=gfx no_map, this is ‘-no_map-gfx’.
Generate the actual packing-list from the template ${PLIST}, by inserting fragments and applying the same variable substitutions as other package information.

Note that ${COMMENT} is currently not substituted.

To avoid substitution, variables can be escaped as follows: $\{PREFIX}

If FLAVORS lists flv, then constructs such as the line %%flv%% or !%%flv%% in the packing-list template trigger the inclusion of ${PKGDIR}/PFRAG.flv${SUBPACKAGE} or ${PKGDIR}/PFRAG.no-flv${SUBPACKAGE}. Other fragments can be defined by simply adding -Dfrag=1 or -Dfrag=0 to PKG_ARGS.

pkg_add(1) now calls ldconfig(8) directly, provided dynamic libraries have been annotated with @lib libthingy.so.5.0. Adding new directories to the dynamic loader cache has been deprecated. It is often better to let libraries be visible as a link under ${LOCALBASE}. Having a separate directory is enough to trick ld(1) into grabbing the right version. Libraries used only for dlopen(3) do not need to be visible. Some programs will prefer to use rpath to find their own libraries.

The special update-plist target does a fairly good job of automatically generating the packing-list information.

If PLIST_REPOSITORY points to a directory, all packing-lists from packages generated by pkg_create(1) during the package stage are saved in ${PLIST_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH} by a script: ${PORTSDIR}/infrastructure/bin/register-plist. This script strips some irrelevant information and normalizes the packing-list somehow, and compares it to existing information, looking for relevant changes. Since a package name must always be changed when the packing-list changes, any attempt to replace a packing-list of a given name with a different packing-list will be flagged as an error.

In MULTI_PACKAGES mode, there must be separate COMMENT, DESCR, and PLIST templates for each SUBPACKAGE (and optional distinct MESSAGE, UNMESSAGE files in a similar way). This contrasts with the FLAVORS situation, where all these files will automatically default to the non-flavor version if there is no flavor-specific file around.

OBSOLETE TARGETS

{build,run,lib}-depends: The dependency mechanism now meshes BUILD_DEPENDS, LIB_DEPENDS, RUN_DEPENDS, WANTLIB and MULTI_PACKAGES. Refer to prepare, install-depends, test-depends.

OBSOLETE VARIABLES

FETCH_BEFORE_ARGS, FETCH_AFTER_ARGS: Set FETCH_CMD to point to a script that does any required special treatment instead.
FETCH_DEPENDS: Used to specify dependencies that were needed to fetch files. It is much easier to mirror locally weird distribution files.
NO_EXTRACT: Set EXTRACT_ONLY= instead.
NO_WRKDIR: All ports should have a working directory, as this is necessary to store cookies and keep state.
NO_WRKSUBDIR: The same functionality is obtained by setting WRKDIST=${WRKDIR}.
OPSYS_VER: Use OSREV instead.
PKGNAME: Used to refer to the full package name, has been superseded by FULLPKGNAME-foo, for SUBPACKAGE -foo. PKGNAME now holds the package name, not taking multi-packages or flavors into account. Most ports are not concerned by this change.
PLIST_SUBST: From NetBSD and FreeBSD. Use SUBST_VARS instead. OpenBSD does not allow general substitutions of the form VAR=value, but uses only a list of variables instead. Most package files gets transformed, instead of only the packing-list.
SCRIPTDIR: Old location for scripts related to the current port. There is no reason for the semantic distinction, use FILESDIR for those.
SITES0, ..., SITES9: Supplementary locations from which distribution files and patchfiles were retrieved, superseded by the more generic SITES.sufx matching DISTFILES.sufx construct.
USE_BZIP2: The framework will automatically detect the presence of .tar.bz2 files to extract. See also BZIP2, EXTRACT_CASES, and EXTRACT_SUFX.
USE_ZIP: The framework will automatically detect the presence of .zip files to extract. See also ZIP, EXTRACT_CASES, and EXTRACT_SUFX.

FILES

../Makefile.inc: Common Makefile fragment for a set of ports, included automatically.
${PORTSDIR}/distfiles: Default setup of ${DISTDIR}.
${DISTDIR}: Cache of all distribution files.
distinfo: Checksum file. Holds the output of cksum(1), using sha256(1) for the port's ${DISTFILES*}, ${SUPDISTFILES*} and ${PATCHFILES*}, as well as the sizes of these files.
${DISTDIR}/${CHECKSUMFILES}: Cache of normal distribution files for a given port.
${DISTDIR}/${MAKESUMFILES}: Cache of all distribution files for a given port.
${PORTSDIR}/infrastructure/mk/*.mk: Actual location of the make(1) glue for the ports tree. make(1) looks for bsd.port.mk( and bsd.port.subdir.mk) under /usr/share/mk/bsd.port.mk, but that file is just a stub that redirects to the real location.
${PKGDIR}/DESCR: Description for the port. Variables such as ${HOMEPAGE} and ${MAINTAINER} will be expanded (see SUBST_VARS). Multi-package ports will use DESCR${SUBPACKAGE}.
${PKGDIR}/README: OpenBSD specific documentation for a port, that will be installed as ${LOCALBASE}/share/doc/pkg-readmes/${PKGSTEM} at the end of fake. Variables from SUBST_VARS will be expanded. Multi-package ports will use README${SUBPACKAGE}.
${PKGDIR}/<foo>.login: login.conf.d file for class <foo>. Will be installed as ${PREFIX}/share/examples/login.conf.d/foo at the end of fake. When a port provides a daemon started by rc.d(8) requiring non-default login.conf(5) attributes, a sample file should be provided and used as a template by adding @sample /etc/login.conf.d/${class} to the packing list.
${PKGDIR}/<foo>.rc: Startup script for <foo>. Will be installed as ${RCDIR}/<foo> at the end of fake. Variables from SUBST_VARS will be expanded.
${PORTSDIR}/plist: Default setup of ${PLIST_REPOSITORY}.
${PORTSDIR}/packages: Default setup of ${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}.
${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/no-arch: Location of arch-independent packages.
${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/all: Location of all built packages.
${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/cache: Location of packages retrieved through the network.
${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/cksums: Location of checksums, see CHECKSUM_PACKAGES.
${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/cdrom: Location of packages suitable for the CD.
${PACKAGE_REPOSITORY}/${MACHINE_ARCH}/ftp: Location of packages suitable for FTP.
${PORTSDIR}/bulk/${MACHINE_ARCH}: Default setup of ${BULK_COOKIES_DIR}.
${PORTSDIR}/update/${MACHINE_ARCH}: Default setup of ${UPDATE_COOKIES_DIR}.
${PORTSDIR}/mystuff: Extra directory used to store local ports before committing them. All depend targets will normally look there after the normal lookup fails. See PORTSDIR_PATH.

DIAGNOSTICS

Note that some of these messages are actually emitted by some other external commands, but grouped here for convenience: easier to look for in dpb(1)'s logs.

See ERRORS for more details about internal diagnostics.

/bin/sh: cd .../pkg - No such file or directory

Emitted during generate-readmes. ${PKGDIR} must point to an existing directory, so that bsd.port.mk can be certain there are no MESSAGEs or other files pertinent to the package.

===> Building from scratch in ...

Emitted when a build creates the ${WRKDIR} for a port. Used by dpb(1) to separate clean builds from builds restarted after a crash for statistics collection.

Discovered old directory in ...

This message comes from update-plist(1). A directory was found in the packing-list file mentioned in the diagnostic. That directory line used to be needed but is no longer, because it's now accounted for through dependencies. Indicates the old directory has been removed.

Error: change in plist between ...

Error message comes from register-plist(1).

Error: duplicate item in packing-list

Error message comes from pkg_create(1), and will result from incorrect packing-lists, such as including several fragments with the same file, or having incorrect PKG_ARGS-sub.

Error: Libraries in packing-lists...and libraries from installed packages don't match

The ports tree and the installed packages are out-of-sync. Mixing library information from both sources might produce packages that can't be installed elsewhere. Cleanest fix is to update the out-of-date source (e.g., update the ports tree, or build and install new packages). Developers may use PKG_CREATE_NO_CHECKS instead, assuming they understand the implications. See print-package-args (wantlib-args) for details.

Fatal: can't flavor a SUBDIR

A dependency mentions top_subdir,flavor. Flavor would then be ignored, as it is only applied to individual ports.

Fatal: can't subpackage a SUBDIR

A dependency mentions top_subdir,-sub. Subpackage would then be ignored, as it is only applied to individual ports.

Fatal: flavor should never start with a digit

This would utterly confuse pkg_add(1). See packages-specs(7).

Fatal: inclusion of <file> from <file>

bsd.port.mk or bsd.port.subdir.mk has been included from a MODULE or from Makefile.inc, resulting in a double inclusion. This would lead to weird results, such as PKG_ARGS being defined twice.

Fatal: SITES* is not defined but referenced by <file> in <DISTFILES*/PATCHFILES*/SUPDISTFILES*>

Pretty much self-explanatory.

Fatal: SUBPACKAGES should always begin with -: <offending list>

That is the only way to differentiate between FLAVOR and SUBPACKAGE in pkgpath(7) specifications.

Fatal: building ports requires correctly installed X11

All file sets of the base OS, including xenocara, must be installed before building ports.

Fatal: /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults should exist and be a symlink

/usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults is distributed as a symlink in the xshare*.tgz file set. If xenocara was not fully installed before packages were added, it may have been created as a directory instead.

Fatal: the licensing info for <pkgname> is incomplete...

Every port must have explicit defines of all PERMIT_* values.

Fatal: Use 'env FLAVOR=flavor make' instead

Arguments specified after make(1) are hardcoded for all recursive sub-makes, and very difficult to override. Thus, FLAVOR must be specified in the environment instead.

Fatal: Use 'env SUBPACKAGE=-sub make' instead

Arguments specified after make(1) are hardcoded for all recursive sub-makes, and very difficult to override. Thus, SUBPACKAGE must be specified in the environment instead.

ldconfig: <dir>: No such file or directory

Usually produced by pkg_add(1) running ldconfig(8). Some tools such as GNU libtool will add directories living under ${WRKINST} to the shared library path during the fake stage. Of course, ldconfig(8) will later complain after the directory no longer exists. The bogus tool should be fixed to conform to OpenBSD usage.

LIB_DEPENDS <spec> not needed for <FULLPKGPATH>

There doesn't seem to be any WANTLIB to match the given LIB_DEPENDS. Thus, the LIB_DEPENDS won't turn into a @depends line in the created package. This is often because of confusion between LIB_DEPENDS and RUN_DEPENDS: RUN_DEPENDS is needed for dlopen'd libraries.

Might be intentional sometimes, if some compile flavors create static binaries, for instance. Also, will happen for multi-packages, where one sets LIB_DEPENDS to have a given build dependency (and corresponding WANTLIB for a given SUBPACKAGE).

See print-package-args (lib-depends-args) for details.

Not built because unlinked (<tag>)

See UNLINKED.

Warning: FULLPKGNAME-sub defined but not FULLPKGPATH-sub

FULLPKGNAME-sub has been explicitly defined by the port, instead of relying on the default, but no value of FULLPKGPATH-sub has been given. This is often an error.

Warning: no debug-info in ...

Port uses DEBUG_PACKAGES so the build-debug-info(1) script expects debug information on all binaries and libraries. Most probably, the build machinery for that specific port omitted -g somewhere, or it runs strips during fake anyway. It can also occur if DEBUG_PACKAGES includes subpackages with no files holding debug info.

Warning: old style distfiles <files>... found

See fetch for the newer way.

Warning: symlink(s) point to non existent file.

Warning message comes from pkg_create(1). The symlink resides in the fake area, under ${WRKINST}. This is only a warning because the symlink may point to a run-time dependency, which obviously won't exist under ${WRKINST} at the time ‘make package’ is run.

Warning: @option no-default-conflict with no @conflict

Warning message comes from pkg_create(1). Most packages that waive "default-conflict" will have explicit conflict markers instead. Otherwise, the package will only conflict with the exact same version, with some possible REVISION bumps. Any other version or FLAVOR won't conflict. This is generally an error, apart from very few ports like devel/autoconf/*.

groff produced empty result for <manpage>...

Warning message comes from pkg_create(1). Manpages are automatically formatted with groff(1) if USE_GROFF is set. The above message denotes an actual problem while formatting the page, which should be addressed. In the meantime, pkg_create(1) still produces a package, but leaves the manpage unformatted, in the hope that something will be able to make sense of it.

HISTORY

The ports mechanism originally came from FreeBSD. A lot of additions were taken from NetBSD over the seminal years.

Since 1998, the framework has been systematically cleaned-up and reorganized to remove bugs. New features have been carefully introduced, trying hard to avoid inconsistencies.

FLAVORS, MULTI_PACKAGES, SEPARATE_BUILD and FAKE are OpenBSD improvements. Most recent additions do not come from another BSD.

BUGS

LOCALBASE, X11BASE, BASESYSCONFDIR, VARBASE and PREFIX are not heeded consistently. Using anything but the default values has not been heavily tested. Some ports may not build if you change them.